Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets
Fjord-terminating glaciers in Svalbard lose mass through submarine melt and calving (collectively: frontal ablation), and surface melt. With the recently observed Atlantification of water masses in the Barents Sea, warmer waters enter these fjords and may reach glacier fronts, where their role in ac...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:6603002 2023-05-15T15:38:56+02:00 Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets Holmes, Felicity A. Kirchner, Nina Kuttenkeuler, Jakob Krützfeldt, Jari Noormets, Riko 2019-07-01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6603002/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31263126 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 en eng Nature Publishing Group UK http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6603002/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31263126 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. CC-BY Article Text 2019 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 2019-07-21T00:15:30Z Fjord-terminating glaciers in Svalbard lose mass through submarine melt and calving (collectively: frontal ablation), and surface melt. With the recently observed Atlantification of water masses in the Barents Sea, warmer waters enter these fjords and may reach glacier fronts, where their role in accelerating frontal ablation remains insufficiently understood. Here, the impact of ocean temperatures on frontal ablation at two glaciers is assessed using time series of water temperature at depth, analysed alongside meteorological and glaciological variables. Ocean temperatures at depth are harvested at distances of 1 km from the calving fronts of the glaciers Kronebreen and Tunabreen, western Svalbard, from 2016 to 2017. We find ocean temperature at depth to control c. 50% of frontal ablation, making it the most important factor. However, its absolute importance is considerably less than found by a 2013–2014 study, where temperatures were sampled much further away from the glaciers. In light of evidence that accelerating levels of global mass loss from marine terminating glaciers are being driven by frontal ablation, our findings illustrate the importance of sampling calving front proximal water masses. Text Barents Sea glacier Svalbard Tidewater PubMed Central (PMC) Barents Sea Kronebreen ENVELOPE(13.333,13.333,78.833,78.833) Svalbard Tunabreen ENVELOPE(17.387,17.387,78.461,78.461) Scientific Reports 9 1 |
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Article Holmes, Felicity A. Kirchner, Nina Kuttenkeuler, Jakob Krützfeldt, Jari Noormets, Riko Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
topic_facet |
Article |
description |
Fjord-terminating glaciers in Svalbard lose mass through submarine melt and calving (collectively: frontal ablation), and surface melt. With the recently observed Atlantification of water masses in the Barents Sea, warmer waters enter these fjords and may reach glacier fronts, where their role in accelerating frontal ablation remains insufficiently understood. Here, the impact of ocean temperatures on frontal ablation at two glaciers is assessed using time series of water temperature at depth, analysed alongside meteorological and glaciological variables. Ocean temperatures at depth are harvested at distances of 1 km from the calving fronts of the glaciers Kronebreen and Tunabreen, western Svalbard, from 2016 to 2017. We find ocean temperature at depth to control c. 50% of frontal ablation, making it the most important factor. However, its absolute importance is considerably less than found by a 2013–2014 study, where temperatures were sampled much further away from the glaciers. In light of evidence that accelerating levels of global mass loss from marine terminating glaciers are being driven by frontal ablation, our findings illustrate the importance of sampling calving front proximal water masses. |
format |
Text |
author |
Holmes, Felicity A. Kirchner, Nina Kuttenkeuler, Jakob Krützfeldt, Jari Noormets, Riko |
author_facet |
Holmes, Felicity A. Kirchner, Nina Kuttenkeuler, Jakob Krützfeldt, Jari Noormets, Riko |
author_sort |
Holmes, Felicity A. |
title |
Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
title_short |
Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
title_full |
Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
title_fullStr |
Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
title_full_unstemmed |
Relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at Svalbard tidewater glaciers: Insights from glacier proximal datasets |
title_sort |
relating ocean temperatures to frontal ablation rates at svalbard tidewater glaciers: insights from glacier proximal datasets |
publisher |
Nature Publishing Group UK |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6603002/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31263126 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(13.333,13.333,78.833,78.833) ENVELOPE(17.387,17.387,78.461,78.461) |
geographic |
Barents Sea Kronebreen Svalbard Tunabreen |
geographic_facet |
Barents Sea Kronebreen Svalbard Tunabreen |
genre |
Barents Sea glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
genre_facet |
Barents Sea glacier Svalbard Tidewater |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6603002/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31263126 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 |
op_rights |
© The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45077-3 |
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Scientific Reports |
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